Thursday, September 19th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $2.244, four cents below Wednesday’s closing price of $2.284. Trading within a narrow band near $2.250 leading up to the weekly storage publication, prices initially fell to an intraday low of $2.228 as the report landed on the bearish side of expectations. Finding buyers soon thereafter, the contract rallied into the afternoon as LNG exports are down on the week and supply balances tightened. Tallying the intraday high of $2.351 at 1:25PM and again at 2:25PM, October closed higher on Thursday at $2.348.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday showed a 58 BCF injection to storage for the week ended September 13 – in line with the market estimate of a 53 BCF injection. Total working gas in storage was reported as 3,445 BCF; 6.0% above this time last year and 8.6% above the five-year average.
As of 6:45AM EST this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was down 48 cents; Natural Gas was down one cent; Heating Oil was down one cent; and Gasoline was down two cents.
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